bullet wounds
by TheFigureInTheCorner
Summary: Spoilers for the 6th book- The events that take place between when Jonah falls unconscious and when he wakes up in the time hollow.


"No!" JB cried, watching as Jonah fell to the ground. He grabbed fistfuls of his own hair with a distressed look on his face. "You have to let me get them out of there." He swung his head from side to side, looking around the room at the disapproving faces of the council members.

"You know as well as we do, that would be too risky," someone replied.

"He's been shot!" JB yelled to the council before him. "I know time has been damaged there, but look- we have thirty seconds of undamaged time to get in and out. That's enough to pull him out of there. And I'm going to, I have to."

"Alright," one of the council members said, reluctantly. "But-"

JB didn't hear the rest of the man's sentence. He had already punched the command into his Elucidator.

He landed rather violently in the middle of the cellar, and he fell to the ground, blinking rapidly and coughing as the dust rose around him. He pushed himself up off the ground, looking around frantically for his friends.

Jonah had been shot. He had to find Jonah.

It wasn't actually very hard. He couldn't see more than a foot in front of him, but among the screaming and gunfire he heard someone crying- a voice he recognized.

Katherine.

He didn't stand- that would have been a stupid idea. He instead scrambled along the ground in a messy army crawl, eventually seeing the blood-spattered leg of someone's jeans- he assumed it was Jonah.

Sitting up, he felt something wet on his palms and soaking into the knees of his own jeans. He swallowed, trying not to think about how much blood Jonah had lost in the five minutes he'd had to wait for a safe time to enter.

Katherine didn't seem to notice him. She was on the other side of Jonah, hands pressed to the wound on Jonah's abdomen as she tried to stop the bleeding.

"Katherine, it's me, it's JB," he said, touching her arm gently despite the urgent tone in his voice. "I'm going to get you out of here. We have to hurry, though, we only have twenty seconds left."

She nodded, sniffling. JB checked Jonah's pulse quickly, and felt him stir under his hand. When he looked down, Jonah's eyes were half open.

"Hey, buddy," JB murmured, just loudly enough to be heard over the guns. "We're getting you out of here."

Jonah's lips moved as if he were trying to say something in response, but slowly they stopped as his eyes closed again. JB grabbed Jonah's arm, frowning. The arm was entirely limp. He could still feel Jonah's chest move up and down as he breathed, but that, too, was growing faint.

Panicking slightly, he looked around. He was running out of time.

Quickly, he wedged his Elucidator between his cheek and his shoulder, and awkwardly reached out to grab Katherine's sleeve.

"Take us to the time hollow!" He shouted into the Elucidator. Nobody heard him over the guns and screaming- he could have been anyone

And just like that, he was shooting through time again.

When they landed in the time hollow, he squinted, the white walls too bright after the dust and gunsmoke and general darkness of the cellar.

When he had rubbed the dust out of his eyes, he glanced over at Jonah.

He felt for Jonah's pulse.

It wasn't there.

"No," he whispered, shaking his head. "No, no, no, this can't happen, this wasn't supposed to happen- Katherine, I need you to put pressure on his wound, now."

Katherine pressed her hands against Jonah's bullet wound on his abdomen. JB crossed his hands over Jonah's heart, starting chest compressions.

The good thing was that Jonah couldn't get any more dead than he already was while in the time hollow- his skin was still warm, his brain wouldn't lose oxygen.

JB cringed, feeling a few of Jonah's ribs crack under his hands. He knew that was what was supposed to happen- he had done this before- but no matter how many times he performed CPR the cracking ribs always made him feel a bit sick.

Occasionally, he would stop to check Jonah's pulse, or move from the chest compressions to the rescue breathing.

Finally, after what felt like forever, Jonah started to breathe on his own again. He didn't wake up- JB didn't expect him to just yet. He sat back on his heels, breathing hard.

Katherine was still crying, pressing her hands to Jonah's wound.

"Katherine," JB said, pulling her away from Jonah gently, "he's okay. He'll be okay. We're in the time hollow now- his wounds can't get worse unless someone makes them worse." He was trying to comfort her, but even he could hear the relief in his own voice.

She pulled her hands away from Jonah, staring at the blood that coated them. JB heard her breathing grow quicker.

"He's already- he _died_, and he's- he's lost so much- blood, and-" she whispered, choking the words out between gasping breaths. She was beginning to sound almost like she could barely breathe, and JB gripped her by the shoulders.

"Katherine. Katherine, look at me," he said firmly. "He's okay. Okay? He'll be okay. Deep breaths, come on. In through your nose, out through your mouth. In and out."

Her breathing stayed shallow and gasping for a bit, but slowly, her breathing began to go back to normal, and she stopped crying.

"You okay now?" JB asked, rubbing small circles on her back. She nodded, glancing back over at Jonah.

JB checked Jonah's pulse again- it was faint, like his breathing, but it was there again. Katherine had wiped off her hands on the floor, leaving streaks of blood.

He guided her hand to Jonah's neck, pressing two of her fingers to his jugular.

"See? His pulse is back." He said, and she nodded again, shoulders falling slightly as the tension released from them. She sat like that for a moment, fingers resting on Jonah's neck. Eventually she drew back, stepping away from Jonah.

"You should probably, um, bandage him up or something," she said, voice cracking slightly. JB nodded, tapping something into the Elucidator. A small medical kit appeared in the time hollow, and he reached for it, opening it and pulling out a pair of scissors, antiseptic, a few cloths, gauze, and a roll of bandages.

"What are the scissors for?" Katherine asked, eyebrows crinkled up in confusion.

"His shirt," JB said, "I'll have to cut it off. Pulling it off the regular way would probably dislodge the bullet or something, and right now that's what's keeping the blood back- or, it's what will keep the blood in when we leave to get him to an actual hospital. Anyway, the shirt is basically ruined already- we can probably get him a replica so nobody ever notices it's gone."

"Oh, no," Katherine said, a look of realization on her face. "How are we going to explain the bullet wounds to our parents?"

"We'll figure something out." JB shrugged, pulling his sweatshirt off so that he was in just an undershirt and tying his sweatshirt around his waist so that the sleeves wouldn't get in the way. His sweatshirt had already gotten messed up, but that was the problem- he didn't want to get any dirt or dust in the wounds.

He began cutting, scissors snipping through the grey fabric of Jonah's t-shirt. It fell away in a few separate pieces, and he pulled a few out carefully from underneath Jonah.

He hissed when he saw the bullet wound. Jonah's skin was torn up. Even as he cleaned the blood away from the wound, he could see that the entry had not been a clean one. It was definitely going to leave a scar. He began to wrap the bandages around Jonah's chest and abdomen.

Once he'd gotten the more severe wound cleaned and bandaged, he moved on to the graze wound by Jonah's ankle bone. That one was smaller, and it hadn't bled as much, but it was messier. He dabbed at it with the antiseptic, wrapping bandages and gauze around the ankle.

He tapped something else into the Elucidator, and there was a hospital bed in the time hollow. Carefully, he lifted Jonah off of the floor, setting him on the bed. He turned back to Katherine.

"And what about you?" He asked her, looking her over for any visible injuries. "Are you hurt anywhere?"

"Just- my arm, I think- Jonah and I were pushed down the stairs, by one of the guards, and I think I broke it on the way down. Not too badly, cause I can still move it, but it felt like it when it first happened," she said, lifting her left arm lazily.

JB pulled up Katherine's sweatshirt sleeve. Her arm didn't look crooked at all- everything seemed like it was in place. But there was a large bruise on the top of her forearm, red and purple and green, and black in some areas.

Once again, he was tapping at the Elucidator. He held it over the bruised area, keeping it there for a few seconds and then pulling it away to look at the screen.

"Yep," he said, showing it to Katherine. "Like you said- it's not a bad break. Just a crack in the bone. We don't even have to set it or anything- nothing's where it shouldn't be. I know how to make a cast- I can do that here, even."

"Yeah," she said, "it didn't hurt while we were there, but now that the excitement has died down a bit it's starting to hurt a lot."

He didn't say anything, simply pressing a small patch into the bruised area.

"Ow, what are you- oh," she said, "painkiller? It stopped hurting again."

"Mhmm," he murmured. "Technically I'm not supposed to give that to you. It's a thing from the future. But if anyone objects to it I'll just remind them that you're also a time traveler and you know how to work an Elucidator."

He was wrapping layers of bandages and plaster casting around Katherine's arm as he said this, from her wrist down to her knuckles.

"Can I get a colored cast?" she asked. JB nodded, smoothing out the plaster and shaking drops of water off of his hands.

"What color?"

"Pink."

He shook his head, chuckling to himself. "I shouldn't even have had to ask."

Within a few minutes, Katherine was sporting a bright pink plaster cast. She moved her arm up and down a bit to get used to the new weight.

"Okay, so Jonah and I both have injuries to try and explain now," she said, staring at it.

"Like I said, we'll figure something out," JB said, moving back over to Jonah.

"What about Chip and Daniella and Gavin?" Katherine asked. "Are we going to be able to get them out, too?"

JB swallowed, hunching his shoulders in what could almost be called a wince. "It's, um. Its a bit complicated at the moment. I can guarantee that while we're in here, at least, they'll be fine. Time doesn't pass in a time hollow, and all." He turned to walk away. "I have some stuff to sort out right now. Tell me if Jonah wakes up and I'll explain it to you together. And, uh, don't tell him that he was dead for a bit- it might make him panic, and that could make the wound worse."

i don't know how to write endings i'm sorry please don't hurt me


End file.
